As Bright as Heaven(107)

“Please don’t take her,” I whisper. “Please?” I feel like my world is crumbling beneath my feet. I lean against the pillar to steady myself. If he removes Sybil from the hospital, I will likely never see him again.

“I have to. I can’t . . . What happened the other day . . .” His voice drops away.

I can’t let him disappear from my life. I can’t. “It doesn’t have to happen again. I promise. Please don’t take her, Conrad.”

“But don’t you see? I want it to happen again! I want it to. And I can’t. . . . Sybil is my wife! I know there isn’t much of her left, but I can’t abandon her, Evelyn. I can’t. That’s not the kind of person I am. It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t know who I am anymore. I know who I am. I can’t abandon her. And I can’t come here every other day and see you and not wish things could be different. I have to take her and go.”

I hear everything he is saying and I understand it, but I can’t accept it. The world is tipping off its axis. What is happening is not supposed to be happening.

“Stop,” I say. It is the only thing I can say.

He reaches up with one hand to touch my cheek. “It’s best this way. To stay would be too difficult. You deserve to be happy, Evelyn. Good-bye.”

Conrad pulls his hand away, and before I can say another word, he has moved away from the pillar. Sybil is being wheeled toward the reception area, her expression as vacant as an empty room. A nurse is pushing her, and an orderly carries a small case of her private belongings.

Conrad doesn’t look back at me as he meets up with Sybil, and the four of them make their way toward the front door.

I can’t stay to watch them drive off. I am not supposed to be in the main entrance. Alex might see me and throw himself into my arms. It takes Herculean effort to walk calmly to the staff washroom, where I let the tears fall at last.





CHAPTER 64



Maggie


Papa is bent over a dead man, shaving the enormous pale face with a steady hand. He’s doing my job. He looks up when I step inside the embalming room.

“You don’t need to be in here right now, Mags. I can handle this.”

But I do. I do need to be in this room where the terrible things that can kill a person are covered up, plastered down, brushed away.

“I don’t want to be wandering around the house today, looking for something to do,” I tell him. I don’t need to add that Alex’s absence is everywhere inside the house, along with Willa’s ever-accusing eyes when she’s not in school.

He slides the straightedge down the man’s face. It makes the same scraping sound that Papa’s razor makes when he shaves. The dead man is huge. He barely fits on the table. “Wouldn’t you rather be planning your wedding?” Papa asks.

“No.”

He tips his head in my direction. “No?”

I shake my head.

“It might take your mind off all this.”

“No, it won’t.”

“Have you talked to Palmer?”

I’m not sure how to answer this question. Palmer and I have spoken on the phone, but he did most of the talking. Was I all right? Yes. Was I going to be arrested? No, I wasn’t. Was Alex all right? We don’t know. Either they haven’t allowed him to call or he doesn’t want to, and there have been no invitations yet to come visit him. Probably too soon, Palmer said. It’s only been five days. I had no response to this. He went on to describe his new job and the little apartment he’d found for us on the Upper West Side. He told me he’d be home in a week for a visit, and then he’d take me out and spoil me and kiss my woes away.

“Don’t worry, my sweet. I am very fond of Alex, but we’ll soon have our own children,” he’d said. And I knew he meant well. But I wanted to slam the telephone down on its cradle.

“We’ve talked,” I reply to Papa. “Let me finish with this fellow. Please? I need to stay busy.”

Papa regards me for a moment and then sets the straightedge down on a tray. “All right. Don’t try to change him into the suit. He’s too heavy. I’ll take care of it.”

I look at the dead man. There isn’t a hint of injury anywhere. “What happened to him?” I ask as I put on my apron.

“Alcohol poisoning. He drank some bad bootleg. A lot of it. It’s a shame. He’s younger than me.”

Yes, it’s a shame.

Papa pulls off his own apron as I tie the strings on mine. “I’ve got some telephone calls to make. I’ll be back in a little bit.” He leaves me to it.

I finish shaving the man and then groom his mustache and wax it into place. The family provided no photo, so I decide to part his hair down the middle and tame his stubborn curls into place with pomade. I add a little stage makeup to his face to brighten the pallor and a little rouge to his cheeks. One eye has popped open, and I am easing it back into the closed position when I hear movement behind me.

I look up. Jamie is standing at the doorway. “Good morning, Maggie.”

I haven’t seen him since Alex was taken away, and I haven’t talked to him since he and I were alone in his father’s accounting office. I should return his greeting, but I’m bewildered by his presence. I don’t know that he’s ever been in the embalming room. He seems to read my thoughts.